It's taken a right old tumble down our rankings thanks to now being usurped as a flagship device by the Sony Xperia S - but given it's now got a lovely low price, it's only just outside the top ten still in our eyes.
From the beautiful Reality Display with Bravia Engine to the powerful-yet-simple 8.1MP camera with Exmor R technology, this is one of the phones that people actually want to hold and play with when you show it off - plus it now boasts a 3D panorama mode, although you have to hook it up to a compatible big screen TV to view.The Sony Ericsson overlay has cool features like an 'exploded widgets' view, and the integration of YouTube searching for videos of songs currently playing is super cool too - plus the Xperia Arc S is now rocking deeper Facebook integration and the latest version of Android: 2.3.4.
OK, it's not dual-core powered, but Sony Ericsson has looked to fix that with a boost to a 1.4GHz processor, and until we start seeing some applications that really start to challenge these smartphones, we're happy to recommend a phone that is slick under the finger, slim in the pocket, satisfying in the hand and kinder than many on the wallet to boot.